1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wireless communication systems and more specifically to a wireless system that enables many-to-many communications via short message services (“SMS”).
2. Description of Related Art
In today's competitive environment, access to immediate information is mandatory. People covet access to instantaneous information and more particularly, people want to be constantly available to others. Over the past decade, the telecommunication revolution has cultivated the demand for instant information and constant contact with endless innovative methods. For example, the wireless industry initially introduced pagers that enabled people to contact one another by sending a numeric message to another's pager wherein the person receiving the page answered the page by calling the number displayed on the pager. As paging technology developed, information, in the form of alphanumeric text, was also received and reviewed using a pager. The communication revolution, however, exploded with the advent of wireless or cellular telephones.
Wireless telephones offer many communication advantages over prior wireless devices such as the pager. First and foremost, wireless telephones enable people to carry on two-way, and in some cases three way, conversations. Thus, once a person has contacted another person over a wireless phone, the conversation is immediate, thereby eliminating the need to wait for the contacted person to return a call, as in the case of a pager.
Initially, analog cellular services, also known as advanced mobile phone services (“AMPS”), were implemented as a standard format in the United States so that all telephones utilized analog cellular networks. However, as analog services became more popular, capacity was not adequate for future growth. As a result, digital cellular multiplexing technologies were developed to provide the much needed additional capacity.
Upon implementation, digital cellular services introduced advanced features into the wireless market that further assisted customers' needs for constant availability and receipt of instantaneous information. Such features included call forwarding and three-way calling. In particular, digital cellular services introduced integrated voice and text communication features over a wireless phone, such as caller ID and paging services. A particular type of text communication service, known as Short Message Service (“SMS”), enables individuals to send and receive short text messages, via a wireless device, on communication channels that are usually separate from a voice call channel.
SMS is a globally accepted wireless service that facilitates the transmission of alphanumeric messages between mobile subscribers and external systems such as electronic mail, paging and voice mail systems. SMS was developed in Europe in the early 1990s. Initially, SMS was only available using the European standards for digital wireless known as global standard for mobiles (“GSM”), however SMS is now compatible with U.S. wireless communication networks utilizing accessing technologies such as code division multiple access (“CDMA”) and time division multiple access (“TDMA”).
The advent of digital cellular, and more particularly SMS, provides numerous benefits to the wireless world that were previously unavailable, thus aiding the population's need for constant information and constant availability. For example, SMS messages do not require a wireless phone to be activated or within range in order to handle a message. In an instance where the receiving phone is not available, the SMS message is stored in an SMS message center for a number of days until the mobile phone is once again active. A further distinguishing characteristic of SMS is that an active wireless phone is able to receive or submit a short message independent of whether or not a voice or data call is in progress. Thus, SMS differs from traditional paging services in that SMS is designed to guarantee immediate delivery of text messages to the proper destinations and further provides flexible, seamless integration of messaging services and data access.
SMS, however, is traditionally a point-to-point, or one-to-one communication method. In transmitting messages, an SMS message is transmitted from a wireless phone or computer to a short message service center (“SMSC”), which acts as a store and forward system for short messages. The wireless network then provides for the transmission of SMS messages between the SMSC and the receiving wireless phone. An SMS message can only be sent by one individual and received by one individual, thereby enabling two persons to have a one-to-one conversation. Conventional SMS services are consequently not capable of engaging in many-to-many communications. If a person needs to contact a group of individuals using SMS services, the person is required to send a separate short message to each individual in the group. There are, however, implementations of an “SMS distribution list,” that provides a one-to-many communication function, but does not provide a many-to-many communication function. The lack of a many-to-many communication function, utilizing SMS, severely limits the effectiveness and efficiency of SMS services.